Why do mental health workers feel like Elon Musk's Elongs are psychological war

Elon Musk called it “What did you do last week?” E -emails to the entire federal workforce ”Pulse check“Reviews.

“Do you have a pulse and two neurons?” He told the laughter at a Cabinet session at the White House last week.

Some professionals in the field of mental health with the veterans health administration do not consider it funny. They resembled the e-mail campaign at the psychological war: a blitz attack, each email hitting as a flash-bang grenade, which concerns the discompabilization of the federal labor.

“Many of us feel that we are harassed to justify our existence and value,” said an authorized clinical psychologist, who noted that he has long watched everything he does – how many people see, how many phone calls he does, what time those meetings start and end, what topics discuss and even what committees offer.

As the weekend is approaching, many federal workers wonder if another “what did you do last week?” E -mail will soon reach the E -mail boxes, reminding to send five bullet points from what they have achieved until Monday.

The White House did not respond immediately to a comment request regarding the reactions of federal employees to E -Moys – or if another is sent this weekend.

Professionals in the field of mental health who talked to the NPR about their stress have asked to remain anonymous for the fear of reprisals by the Government.

No option but answer

Musk’s Request for a weekly accounting of achievementsSent from an e-mail address of the personnel management office (OPM) during the hour, the federal workers from all over the government. And yet, because he will train his employees to answer, the mental health workers who talked to the NPR think they cannot ignore the question.

On social media, Musk suggested that employees may lose their jobs If they have not answered. At his cabinet meeting, President Trump said that those who do not answer “are on the bubble, as they say.”

Without citing evidence, Trump and Musk have suggested that there may be people who collect government salaries who have switched to other jobs or can even be dead.

“We are literally trying to realize that these real people are alive and I can write an E -mail,” Musk said.

But the stress brought by E -emails – above all the other disturbances that hit the federal workforce, including the notifications regarding mass redundancies – is an effect, said the psychologist.

“I have to keep it together and like it -the OPM emails or end, while they also respond the veterans concerns about whether I will be there for them next week,” she said. “Instead of doing good jobs to address depression, PTSD, sexual trauma, fighter trauma, etc., I have to spend time stepping on -and the nerves.”

Paranoia at work in the fear of being monitored

A psychiatrist from another veterans’ health unit says he was in a parking lot, when he saw the first “what did you do last week?” E -mail, which was sent on Saturday, when he was leaving work and tried to relax with his family.

–As someone specialized in mental health, I can say with confidence that this Em mail is meant to psychologically upset federal workers, “she told the NPR.

And it works.

“I’m restless and irritable at home,” she said. “I wake up for the first time, which negatively affects my mental health and something I tell my veterans not to do.”

The psychiatrist also describes a paranoia that has prevailed at work. Colleagues are attentive to what they say in online messages and meetings, fear that they are monitored by Musk and his department of government efficiency, she said.

She assumes that all the answers to “What did you do last week?” E -mail are analyzed using artificial intelligence, but does not know for what purpose.

“I really think this is a bad process,” she said.

Amy Edmondson, a teacher and social psychologist at Harvard Business School, understands where this suspicion comes from.

Normally, an employer does not reach a worker on the free day unless it is a real emergency, she says. In the context of the wide press of the Trump administration to reduce the federal labor force, a seemingly simple request to list five achievements of the previous week could be worrying in the best and disturbing in the worst case.

“You don’t know what’s under it,” explains Edmondson. “What does the sender really want? For whom he is? How will he help?”

A call to debt

This week, the Department of Veterans Business has laid the initial base for mass dismissals, as part of Trump administration’s efforts to “eliminate waste, reduce management and bureaucracy, reduce fingerprint and increase labor efficiency” The memoir is shared by the American Federation of government employees.

Professionals in the field of mental health who talked to NPR do not know if they will be affected. As they thought about jobs outside the government, they like their work and they don’t want to leave the veterans they helped behind.

“In the private sector, I could work with” lighter “or less complicated patients,” said the psychologist. “The reality is that those who opt to come to work to do this because of our call to the duty to serve those who served us.”

Do you have information you would like to share about changes in progress between the federal government? Andrea Hsu a NPR can be contacted by encrypted communications on the signal at Andreahsu.08.